Francesco Bagnaia showed he was in good shape at the first official tests of 2023, taking his Desmosedici to second place overall after the three days of testing at Sepang. The world champion considered a change made to the electronics to be decisive, and ensured that the bike from this year is effectively a step forward.

‘I’m happy and proud of the work we’ve done, sincerely. Yesterday I thought the job was done, on a good level, but today we got around some problems and got around it on all levels. In the last hour of the test we made a big change in the electronics, we took a big step forward and from that moment it was clear, in the session in terms of lap time, why with used tyres I started doing 59.1s, 59.0s and everything was ok and I’m very happy with that’, the Ducati rider told, he who set a time of 1:57.969s as the best lap.

Afterwards, Bagnaia admitted problems in attacking the times, now that he considers it natural as he also has a new bike, and assured that this one is effectively better than the predecessor.

– I just did a couple of timestamps yesterday before it started raining and, as usual, the first time attacks aren’t easy to do because you have to push at another limit, but I felt really good with the bike and at that moment I felt, and I really want to continue, the work with the 2023 motorcycle because it is a step forward.